City of Port Arthur plans for the future of the Kansas City Southern Engine No. 503 and a host of challenges that concern the ancient steam engine are either undetermined or short term. As a community, we’re not chugging forward on this issue.

Right now the city, with the help of an environmental consultant, is drawing up remediation plans for tainted soil that rests in the corner of Bryan Park, where the engine has been displayed for most of six decades. It will take a month to develop this latest plan. The city’s focus is understandable: The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has said that prior clean-up efforts at that site failed to address an overload of lead paint there.

The city has struggled to meet TCEQ’s environmental concerns surrounding the locomotive for about a year, since neighbors to Bryan Park grew concerned in the wake of Hurricane and Tropical Storm Harvey flooding that asbestos, lead and other environmental ills might invade nearby property because of flooding.

The city missed three deadlines for remediation; in trying to meet the fourth, it seems, the city’s remediation efforts missed the mark. That leaves city leaders focused not on the rusting scrap heap that the engine and tender have become, but rather on the soil that’s creating state concern. TCEQ, for now, remains patient.

To the good side is this: Although tests show too much lead in the soil where the train formerly rested — the train has been moved several yards from the site where it previously sat — the lead apparently has not posed an imminent health threat. To the bad side is everything else.

The train’s steady decay should be of no surprise to anyone. It has been rusting away in plain view on Gulfway, one of Port Arthur’s busiest streets, off and on for decades.

The slow, relentless rot in No. 503 has taken place in a public park, too. The engine was placed there so that people could see it.

Six decades ago, the engine and tender were points of pride in this city, linking us to our railroad heritage. Now, they point to Port Arthur’s accumulating worries.

City leaders can ill afford to address this heap of rotting metal while addressing other, equally pressing and more expensive needs in drainage, streets and crime. Port Arthur has spent some $50,000 to meet the urgent environmental demands of Engine No. 503, and more will be spent to address the tainted soil. That doesn’t cover anything that would repair the engine itself.

City leaders would do well to set a deadline for finding solutions. One expert estimated it might cost some $400,000 to fix the engine and house it in a way to protect it.

Is it really worth it?